Comments (12)

Billy Joel's the only musical act I got up in the middle of the night to get on line at GI Joe's for. Ended up with first row seats behind the stage, which seemed dubious, but it was like being on stage with him. He even walked over at one point and said to us: "Bet you thought these seats were gonna suck?"

His concerts were the best, but he's a Long Island guy like me, and we both used to hang out at the Parkway Diner (though not together).

Not sure I like his Sinatra phase, but it'll probably grow on me. Makes me feel like I'm getting old, which, uh-oh, I am.

Rocker piano man. What's to discuss?

He gets a bad rap for being "pop" lite but anybody who closes his shows with "don't take any sh*t from anybody" is OK in my book.

"He looks like a politician", I laughingly commented to my wife. Of interest as I sipped my Mirror Pond Pale Ale though: we were at a public screening at our neighborhood theater* - a rather upscale joint suckling the city's teat - and while commenting above noted that none of the hundred or so in attendence stood, removed hats or covered heart, for his rendition. A sign of the times?

Not sure of the legality of that, in view of the stink the NFL raised about churches doing such.

The beauty of it, for those that don't already know, was that the linked performance happened just after Frank Sinatra had been given a lifetime achievement award. The producers of the awards show cut off Sinatra's (admittedly long-winded) acceptance speech to go to a commercial. Billy Joel's shot back was later in the same show, and no one missed the point. It was a better tribute to Sinatra than any album could ever be.

If that spitting defiance didn't give him brash rocker cred to burn, I don't know what could.

Ditto on the thanks for the link. I've never seen that either, and I was quite a fan back in the day. That's really funny, and very him, as others have noted.

He's kind of become a parody of himself, with the tree-crashing, young-wife-having, bloaty-looking thing he's doing now, but the guy could/can really play the piano, and he was a very serviceable musician for a girl like me to love as a teenager. Many flaws on that legacy, but a lot of credits, too.

Road Work

Miles run year to date: 156
At this date last year: 225
Total run in 2014: 401
In 2013: 257
In 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269